The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A
February 9, 2014
The Rev. Christopher L. Caddell
What is the most valuable thing in your possession?
Is it your house?
Your bank account?
Maybe it is a family heirloom, or a set of photographs that remind you of a special occasion or trip.
There is a house that I pass each day on my way home from church. More often than not, I see a the man who lives there in his driveway polishing and waxing his jet-black Mustang GT. Obviously it is one of his most valued possessions.
This morning’s gospel is a fairly familiar one. In fact the whole scene is familiar. It comes from the Sermon on the Mount, which in Matthew’s gospel is a long, extended teaching that Jesus directs to this new group of disciples that have answered the call to follow Jesus.
The images that Jesus uses are memorable and ones that almost everyone would have heard at some time or another. “You are the salt of the earth ….” You are the light of the world….”
We talk of people being “the salt of the earth” meaning they are good, honest, hard-working people that would do just about anything for anyone. While people like that are certainly the kind of friends I like to have, it’s not what Jesus was saying to his disciples.
Likewise, Sunday School children all around the world learn the song, “This Little Light of Mine,” and cute as it may be having children wave their finger in the air and hiding it under a bushel, again such an idea falls short of the powerful metaphor Jesus is trying to convey.
Salt and light are two things that we today hardly notice at all. Salt packets are in every fast-food meal, on every dining table, and found in abundance in almost every pantry.
Light is available on demand. If it’s not bright enough for you, turn on another switch. Even if the power does go out, we have back up generators and battery powered flashlights to keep us totally out of the dark. I couldn’t tell you the last time I wanted or needed light and was without the possibility of obtaining it.
But for those disciples sitting around listening to Jesus salt and light were very expensive commodities. Salt was packed in and traded like any other rare good of the time. In some times and places salt was traded ounce for ounce for gold. Roman soldiers were often paid in salt, which is where we get our term, “salary.”
Light was also very valuable. Of course the sun cast abundant light in the day, but when night fell it was very expensive to create light. You had to burn something – either firewood, which was in short supply, or oil, something else that cost a substantial sum of money.
The metaphor that Jesus is painting is one that places the disciples side by side with these highly valued commodities. Not only are these things of surpassing value, but also are highly sought after and useful. These twelve people sitting around listening to Jesus will be the means through which others will be blessed.
It is the beginning of a movement that will go far beyond what those twelve men could have ever thought possible.
Just 25 or 30 years later, Paul makes a bold claim as he reminisces about how the Church was established in Corinth. Paul says that as he arrived in this Roman city, the message he shared was simple – Jesus and his extraordinary example of love. Yet now, now that that community has matured, he assures this community that they have the mind of Christ. That is a very bold claim! No longer are they simply passive hearers of the gospel, but active participants, doing the things that Jesus himself would do. By the power of the Spirit, the members of this community are searching, discerning, and seeking the knowledge and will of God.
A small community of people is now living into being salt and light in their own ways, in their own community.
Earlier last month at the Annual Parish Meeting, we were reminded that in 2014 we are celebrating 30 years of being an Episcopal congregation in Dripping Springs.
In April of 1984, a group of twelve people gathered in the snack bar of the High School to celebrate the Eucharist. Six weeks later the congregation held an organizational meeting at the United Methodist Church and were formally named The Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit.
By November, the church was meeting in a dance studio and reported an average attendance of 20 and a budget of $9,376. A few months later the Diocese will formally recognize this new congregation, and by August the first piece of property off 290 & RR 12 will be purchased.
Fifteen years later the church will move to where we sit today.
Looking back it is hard to believe the strides that have been made in such a relatively short period of time. Temporary meeting places gave way to more permanent locations. Some of you sitting here today have seen many of those changes come about. Yet it is not just about buildings and meeting spaces.
Since that day in 1984, this congregation has grown from 12 members to 110 families representing 225 active members. Our average attendance that began at 20 is now 120. And none of this accounts for the hundreds of people who have been touched by this congregation – those who were once active but have died or have moved away, those who have been blessed by attending a wedding or a funeral here, the children and families who have passed through this place as their first experience of school, finding a loving and nurturing environment that helps children begin their lives with the knowledge that everyday is one in which they live in the sight and love of God.
This congregation has a history of being salt and light – an extremely valuable resource to the community of Dripping Springs.
Jesus does not, however, give his disciples much time to bask in the glow of this high praise he gives his disciples.
Salt is useful, but only as long as it continues to be salt.
Light is not something hidden away, but placed high so that all can see it.
As we prepare to celebrate 30 years of being Holy Spirit in Dripping Springs, we can and should look back in wonder and awe at the things that God has done through his faithful people in this community.
Yet Jesus’ words to his disciples are in the present and active tense.
You are the salt of the earth.
You are the light of the world.
God’s mission is never one to rest on that fact alone. God calls us through the power of the Spirit to search, to seek, to discern, and to act on what is next for this community he has planted in Dripping Springs, Texas.
You and I are the most valuable possession God has. In Christ, we are God’s salt of the earth and God’s lights to the world. The challenge comesby living into and being that valuable resource that we are – everyday, every week, every month, every year.
God has wonderful plans for this community. I believe with all my heart that we have just begun to break the surface. Yet I also believe that if we live into our calling to be salt and light in this community in which we have been placed, in another thirty years, the people who come after us will look back in awe and wonder at what God has accomplished through us.
May Jesus’ words to his disciples (and to us) ring loudly in our ears, and may we go forward with the resolve to be God’s salt and light in this community of Dripping Springs. Amen.
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